CARNIVAL

As soon as I arrived at her house, Alegria taught me three things: always air the house at the first light of dawn; always make my bed; always start and end the day as if it could be the last. And for Alegria that meant often dancing merrily on the back of life's worries, big or small. Her favourite singer talked about life being like a carnival. Alegria took the philosophy literally. 

Music, and salsa in particular, were very much part of our everyday lives, orchestrating our days from morning to night. For anyone who understands Spanish, they can recognise how the rhythms of salsa music make a body vibrate with human pain: unloved, not loved at all, poor, abused, betrayed or simply sad. The moral of the story is to always keep moving, never stop shaking life inside that body. Carnival became very quickly my favourite time of the year, before Christmas and the New Year: The profusion of colours and sounds in a human tide as rich, diverse, and colourful as the nature that had witnessed their birth. During my first carnival, the drums resounded in my chest like in a crate, reminding me that inside this small body, there was indeed life. In the midst of violence and cruelty of inhuman acts on mankind by mankind had arisen the fire of life, even more burning and vibrant. Rhythms and voices originating in Africa had crossed the Atlantic to land stronger than ever on the coasts of Cuba.

The human soul doesn't know how to remain captive for long. It always ends up rebelling despite fear, punishments, and doubts. No matter how much man tries to reduce the human soul to insignificance, the human soul will always have the last say. Its voice will always rise above the infamous to claim the reparation that is rightfully its. The human soul never ceases to give life, to laugh, to celebrate and to aspire to touch beyond what is possible, against all odds.

It was on a sunny day of Carnival that Feliz appeared in the story of my life, as light and unexpected as a butterfly; my first experience of attraction and lust.